Pocahontas

Since native American tribes, Cherokee and Osage, lived in the area before white settlers came and made the Ozarks their home, the northwestern Arkansas town, Pocahontas, was named after the famous Indian princess. It became a settlement around 1815 owned by Ranson S. Bettis of North Carolina. Bettis, who was a trader and physician, brought it family to the settlement and they built house on a hill. He set up a trading post and his daughter, Cinderella, married a man named Thomas Stephenson Drew. Thomas Stephenson and Ranson S. Bettis later built up the community of Pocahontas together. 18 months after its establishment Arkansas gazette wrote about how flourishing the town already was. The value of the land had gone up with 100-500%. Pocahontas was known as the Metropolis of the West. When Randolph county was officially known as a county by the territorial legislature, in 1835, pocahontas became its county seat and has remained it since then. Today Pocahontas has a population of about 6,500.